Hiding in Plain Sight

[Adrian Kane]

 

Arikan & Valtin

Continued from Consorting with enemies

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Later, he met Valtin at the base of a dilapidated tower. The dreadlord was still wearing his blacksmith clothes minus the filthy apron. He was a fallen version of himself, but the brightness in his eyes and the hunger by which he bowed his head upon encountering his former master said he would soon be restored to glory.

“Lord General,” he said in greeting.
Arikan didn’t correct him. Without an army, he was a general no longer, but he’d required the honorific last time they were together. Valtin and the other lieutenant dreadlords were quick to adopt similar allegiance. Which was precisely why they were all dead. All except Valtin.

Which led Arikan to question how he escaped a sure death sentence when all his equals were cut down.

The answer was a mysterious woman that Arikan himself was eager to meet.

“Lead on,” he said, ordering Valtin to begin the ascent. The stairs were narrow. This part of the fortress was older than the rest. Various states of disrepair suggested it wasn’t worth the effort to maintain. The woman was a recluse, and Valtin’s description suggested she was half-mad, but some talent bid that this precise location was where they should hide these past few years, if she was half-mad, then the other half was surely valuable. 

At the door high above, Valtin knocked. "It's me," he called out gentler than Arikan would have imagined possible.